cleaning the prop will make the biggest difference for the least amount of effort. If you are hauling the boat you can finish the rest of the bottom when it is out of the water. (but dont let it dry out first - as others have said you will then need a jackhammer to get them off)

Black smoke can mean anything from clogged fuel filters to a restricted exhaust elbow to clogged injectors...everyone here is willing to share their knowledge and experience. The more history and symptoms you can supply the better everyone can help.

I was only making 1.5-2.5kt on a 9 kt boat and figured fouling...Had the prop. and bottom dove on and all resolved.

My question is, how quickly does this growth occur and what can you do?

I know it depends on the conditions (warmer waters) and the boat (more complicated hardware) but wonder about avoiding such major fouling. I left the boat for 4 months in SF bay and expect that is where it all occurred.

Should you spin the prop once a week, month or what to prevent major fouling?

Spinning the prop does not help - strange but true. The barnacles grow regardless.

Over summer, as the water gets warmer, you need to clean the prop/bottom about every month. If you don't race, and don't mind knotmeter and depthsounder failing, a couple of months. Over winter, 2 or 3 months wait is fine.

I clean every month May-October, and a couple of times over winter.

To prevent major fouling and bottom cleaning, either clean regularly, or go spend a week in the Delta. The fresh water kills off all those saltwater critters!

By choosing to post the reply above you agree to the rules you agreed to when joining Sailnet.
Click Here to view those rules.

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the SailNet Community forums, you must first register. Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.Please note: After entering 3 characters a list of Usernames already in use will appear and the list will disappear once a valid Username is entered.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

OR

Log-in

User Name

Password

Remember Me?

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.